Welcome to the Year 2000: The Spirit
by Dora
Summary: Katherine Pryde reflects on the fate of the world, and the Twelve who tried to make it all better.


DISCLAIMERS: Katherine Pryde is property of Marvel, as is everyone else mentioned.   


* * *

  
Friday, October 12, 2001   


I've never been much for writing. My creativity, what little there was, always manifested itself in other forms. Dance, mostly. There was a time when I attempted poetry, but I quickly became disgusted with my own inability to rhyme, and wound up turning back to my personal specialty. That would be computing, for reference. It used to be a joke between me and my closest friends... "Pay your respects to the goddess of computing." Things like that.   


So I left the major creativity to other people, like Piotr. His paintings always astounded me... But then, my brain is too logical to really come up with works of art. My blessing and my curse. It's part of what kept me alive. What -should- have kept everyone else alive... Life is unpredictable that way, I guess. After all, I never expected that I'd have to take up the job of "creative-type person," nonetheless "last-vestige-of-sanity-in-a-world-gone-mad."   


I'm left with no other choice, though. I'm the only one left to chronicle what happened, to tell the tale of how our world fell apart.   


God, I miss my family.   


There's some sick sort of irony to that, knowing how things work -- me, the transformed atheist, using that particular term. Kurt would tell me that it's because deep down, I still believe. Pete would tell Kurt that he was full of it. Somewhere between the both of them, Amanda would smile at me, and shake her head in that way I came to interpret as "men!"   


So I suppose that I should start explaining what actually happened... It hurts, though, and I don't actually expect anyone to read this.   


Well, okay, one person, but I'll get to that later.   


It's doubtful that anyone other than me will actually remember this far back ("this far back"... three years ago, and I'm saying "this far back"?), but that's where everything starts. Close to the millennium, though very few people were actually worrying about that at the time. Or at least Excalibur wasn't -- we were far too preoccupied with cleaning up after the British government's mistakes. Let me elaborate: we were taking care of Black Air, a group of sick, twisted people that would happily bring Hell to earth. We should've been more careful. _I_ should have noticed more, should have been able to use that logic of mine which Pete once called "Vulcan-ish," to figure things out.   


But at the time, our lives were going so well that I don't think anyone in our position would've noticed. Or maybe I'm just trying to convince myself.   


Meggan and Brian Braddock, two of our team's founding members, had finally gotten married a year before -- August of 1998, and they left the team on a pretty permanent basis, preferring to stay out of the spandex-clad world. Brian's sister Elizabeth came out of her own hiatus at the wedding, and wound up joining Excalibur immediately afterwards.   


Kurt eventually got off his fuzzy blue butt after Amanda was nearly killed by Illyana's Soulsword -- again -- and proposed to her once she came out of her coma. I remember Rahne being horrified when I took Illyana's sword back, but what other choice did I have? It was my burden to bear, and so once her engagement was a set thing, I asked Amanda to begin teaching me magick. Kitty Pryde, practitioner of the Winding Way... it still sounds as weird to me now as it did then.   


Apparently, it sounded more than weird to Rahne. Illyana's Darkchilde persona had always terrified her, and we all knew that I was no saint... That was proved once Belasco came to "reclaim his rightful property," as the stupid git told me. The Soulsword was the only piece of Illyana I had left to remember her by, and he expected me to just give it up?   


Pete told me later that he would've laughed at my initial expression of surprise, if I hadn't gone so crazy right afterwards. Belasco pissed me off, and there was this wispy little voice sounding in my head... Long story short, I became the new mistress of Limbo.   


After Belasco's death, Rahne left Excalibur, taking Douglock and Colossus with her. It was something of a guilt trip, but from what Moira told me, they were all quite happy helping with Generation X, and Emma Frost even gave Piotr's career as a renowned artist a kick start. It stills bothers me, though, that one of my own friends was frightened by me... I suppose that's how Illyana used to feel.   


The others... they reassured me that I was still the same person no matter what, and so as always, life continued on. For a while, anyway.   


Kurt and Amanda's wedding rolled by a little more than a year after Brian and Meggan's, and they left Muir for a couple of months on one of those world tours. By early December of 1999, Psylocke went to the mainland to spend Christmas with her family. That left Muir with Moira, Pete, Lockheed and myself. The quiet, while unnerving at first, became a welcome change, and I wound up spending most of the time alternating between practicing my kata and my spells.   


Christmas and Hanukkah went by almost unnoticed, with everyone "too busy" to come by, and us too preoccupied to visit them. But the new year... the new year was a blast. And I mean that literally.   


Pete complained about it, but I persuaded him to save the "festivities" until later, and we spent the last hours of 1999 with Moira, who'd been pried out of her lab. She died not soon after.   


That's actually an understatement -- we didn't know until later on, but her death came at the moment certain superstitious types had been fearing. Y2K was nothing, compared to that. While I've had little direct experience with certain enemies of my friends, I loathe them nonetheless. Sinister is one. Stryfe is another, if not because of the threat he's posed to my best friend's brother, then because of the threat he released on our world. His legacy is everyone's now, and was just starting to be then.   


Stryfe killed Illyana, who was like the sister I never had. Stryfe killed Jamie Madrox, who was one of Rahne's closest friends. Stryfe killed Moira, who was everyone's confidante. Stryfe planted a bomb within our society, and from the grave he has taken my family from me. He is very lucky that my reach does not extend into the hell where he is, hopefully, burning. I say that for Kurt, who would be reassured by his religion, if he were still alive.   


I have my reassurances... but it's very difficult to cover a wound to the heart with a Band-Aid.   


The Legacy mutated immediately. It had to, since it killed all its hosts at once, like flicking off a light switch. I remember Moira telling Meggan about the Ebola virus once, several years ago. About the different strains, from Marburg to Sudan. At the time, I believe there were four. One, Zaire, had a ninety percent fatality rate, but was relatively difficult to catch. The other, Reston, was even more dangerous -- it was airborne, could be contracted just by breathing normally, but it only infected monkeys... for the time being. The Legacy took on the worst characteristics of both, was designed to do so.   


Pete and I made sure that the others got to Muir immediately, and Moira had a decent ceremony. We didn't know anything then. I should have paid closer attention.   


Pete started coughing four days after the funeral. Smatterings of people across New York and New Jersey were seemingly down with the flu. I took his cigarettes away from him.   


He was on a respirator within a week and a half. We all tried to keep in touch, especially when it seemed that Rahne and Hank McCoy had developed the flu, also. The next call came from X-Force -- Terry Rourke was coughing up blood.   


The more I think about it (and believe me, I think about this quite often), the more I realize that Stryfe seemed to target us first. Not just mutants, but the people who fought on Xavier's side, for his infamous Dream, capital "D." It makes me wonder how much he knew, to take us the way he did... were we carrying dormant virii for several years? I still have trouble understanding the how of things, more often than not, but I do realize that his scheme had layers upon layers.   


He wanted us to hurt, to know the hurt he felt. That bastard didn't know the meaning of pain, and I'm positive he realized that, too.   


What little time I was away from Pete was spent in Limbo. My kingdom. I understand why 'Yana did the same. It may be a little slice of hell, but it's mine. My sanctuary. My savior. And Illyana understood that, still does. Limbo's rulers don't really die, you know... Belasco may rent space in my brain, but Magik is there too. I'm not quite so alone as it seems, and it had its perks, I suppose. Illyana often lent her own two cents, if not her powers. I'm swerving off track, though, aren't I? Right.   


By February, everyone in Generation X but Chamber and M were down. I don't know how I knew, but I did... so I left for Massachusetts. It was worse than I'd expected. The entire population -- human and mutant -- were on their last legs. That's not entirely a figure of speech, either. I closed up the school best I could without being too obvious, and took Jonothon and Monet back to the X-Men's base with hopes of retrieving help. Stupid of me.   


They were almost as bad off as Gen X, and I remember seeing Trish Tilby, that CNBC reporter, on one of the mansion's televisions, doing some story about what was happening throughout the states. Everyone had gone into a panic, and when I saw how Bobby Drake had burnt up until he was nothing more than a puddle, then the reports that X-Force was dead and Sam Guthrie was on his way back... it was too much. Taking Jonothon and Monet with me, I went back to Muir. Pete was dead by the end of the month, and God knows it wasn't pleasant... he was hurting so much at the end, and he nearly begged to die with dignity... I couldn't let that disease take him. I didn't.   


He had been kept under quarantine thanks to precaution, and I sterilized before and after visiting the medlab, but it wasn't enough.   


Kurt started to lose his fur, and the New England and Southwestern states started to crash and burn. Amanda locked herself up with her husband, but it was useless. Meggan had decided to visit, and within two months, most of Scotland and quite a bit of England had gone mad. Logan called on what remained of Canada's comm systems with more reports, and while Jono informed me that I couldn't stop crying for two days after being told that he and Rogue were the only ones left, I seemed glad that someone was out there.   


I remember feeling a small sense of relief amidst my remorse. There were survivors, despite the fact that this plague was still going strong. People were genuinely terrified, though, and countless mutants -- even suspected mutants, people with birth defects -- were murdered. I thought of the Salem witch trials. We were caving in upon ourselves, and by July, bodies had begun to pile up.   


The survivors who knew the proper people came to Muir, and while Jonothon listened to reports on deaths and riots, Monet and Amanda hid in their own little worlds. That left me with answering the door.   


Shatterstar showed up with Sam, both looking more haggard than I'd ever thought possible. Next came Meggan Braddock, who was as depressed as Amanda, but seemed well enough. Less than a week later, we got another call from Logan. He had found Domino and Cable, and they were on their way to Muir. I should have known. We all should have known.   


Once everyone had some time to recuperate, we all sat down with hopes of understanding. Monet surprised me when she finally came out of her daze, if only long enough to point out that the twelve of us all seemed to have our own defenses, more or less. She and Rogue were generally immune to disease. Shatterstar and Lockheed, who hadn't left my side in months, were alien. Logan had his healing factor, Domino her luck. Jono was little more than a walking corpse in the first place, Sam couldn't die, Meggan wasn't really human, and Amanda and I had our magicks for protection. That left Cable, who "_was_ supposed to be a savior in the first place," as I think she might have put it. My memory is no longer entirely trustworthy.   


Domino yelled at him for nearly twenty minutes before he cracked, eventually telling us about the Twelve. I remember Jono saying it was just a bunch of bollocks he wanted nothing to do with. Jono, in his own strange way, reminded me of Pete on occasion. I miss them both so much that it has become a physical pain.   


By the beginning of September, I think we were all just waiting. For something, anything. We had all discovered that waits were short, more often than not, though Logan and Shatterstar became impatient after just a few days. They went to the mainland despite Cable's commands to do otherwise, checking for signs of life, I suppose. Scotland no longer had much of a pulse, nor did England, Africa or Japan.   


I spent hours upon hours sitting before Muir's computers -- machines that I had programmed and reprogrammed over the years -- only to find that the States were in ruins, along with the rest of the world. We continued our wait while the Legacy raged on, and lives blinked out in vast numbers on a daily basis. Frustrated, I turned to Limbo. And then to Jonothon, who I had become much too attached to.   


We got what we were waiting for, late September of 2000. Apocalypse came out of wherever he'd been hiding, and made his presence known. We went to face him, and we were foolish. Before the fight had even begun, Amanda was snuffed out. Her death empowered me, in more ways than one. He fueled our rage, but he killed the woman who had eventually become a sister to me.   


Lockheed fell next, and the Soulsword screamed for me. My little dragon... a year later, and I still keep expecting to wake up each morning to garbled trills and threats of flame.   


Cable was shrieking in all our minds, demanding that we fall into place. It was useless, though. The Twelve had hardly begun to exist before it was crushed. I've seen more death than I've cared to during my short life, and what happened that day still makes me sick to my stomach. It was chaos embodied, and one of the things I can recall most clearly is the red film which covered everything, gruesome. While I want everything written in order so that no one forgets (too little, too late, I would think), the way the remainders of my friends and family died should not need to be chronicled. I will take that to my own grave, thank you.   


There was no strategy, no rhyme nor reason to what happened, or how we fell. But at the end of it, when Cable and Apocalypse seemed to be having a staredown, and I was standing, horrified, intangible, watching Chamber's true form take to the astral plane... I'm incapable of describing it. This from the woman who uses her logic to a fault... I'd laugh, but I'm afraid I might wind up crying again, and tears are a waste.   


At the point when the flash came, we weren't entirely defeated. Cable and Rogue, while hurt, weren't completely broken. Shatterstar was taking his last breaths, but still on his feet. Ben's tenacity always amazed me... I couldn't say where I was, though. Again, my memory is anything but 100% reliable -- I remember the worst of the fight, how my friends were cut down, but little more than that.   


It was, of course, a warzone. Despite the small numbers on the field, I had never seen a place that felt so crowded. And it was, believe me. Maybe not on a physical plane, but the Soulsword saw it all... Cable saw it all, and he drew upon what remained of the Twelve. He took us all in, inside of him, and it was beautiful. It was the most terrible beauty I'd ever seen, and what came to mind then -- what I still think of when I remember what it was like -- is Elizabeth Braddock. Betsy, the woman I owe my life to, is gone.   


Most everyone is gone.   


I remember hearing Apocalypse scream, and Nathan scream, and they were intermingled. At the end, I think they became one. There was... a light, of sorts, so blinding and difficult to explain, and then they were gone. It was so frightening... I think I ran to Limbo. No... I _know_ I ran to Limbo, my home away from home, my place of technology, and logic, and things that can't feel or hurt...   


I was too afraid to go back. For all I knew, Rogue and anyone else who could have possibly survived might have been wandering in the wastelands. It didn't matter. I couldn't go back. It was just too much, too overwhelming. Instead, I stayed huddled in my little corner of Limbo, a place where even my "subjects" couldn't get to me. Illyana and all the others who spoke to me so often were quiet, and it was maddening. All alone, where to go?   


Back to the warzone, where we had all died and had our souls taken for the sake of good. There was nothing left, which really didn't surprise me at all. But I cried anyway. For Moira, for Kurt, for Pete and Lockheed and Rahne and Jono and my family, adopted and by blood, and for the millions upon millions of innocent people who didn't deserve to die in such a way.   


I cried for me.   


Because the virus _still_ wasn't over... People were still dying... And I was too tired to fight off death.   


For a few months, I scoured what felt like the whole world for people, wanting to help them, and figuring that if I caught the virus, I would die. End of story.   


It didn't happen, and, eventually, there didn't seem to be anymore people to help. So I retired to Limbo for a few months, living in a state that wasn't living at all. I nearly went insane, for the second time. And then it happened.   


One of the voices came back. Except it wasn't one I could immediately recognize. It was familiar, but weak... dying. It demanded that I leave Limbo, if only for a little while.   


Sinister never was one to say "please."   


When I found him, he explained that Stryfe's Legacy was finally taking its toll on him, too, despite the immortality En Sabah Nur had promised. I would have left then, if he hadn't explained that I was as close to a like mind as he could get, and he was bequeathing his final masterpiece to me. That, however, wasn't what stopped me. It was an achingly familiar touch at the back of my mind, and the little redheaded source which I recognized immediately.   


I took the child before Sinister could even say another word, and we left for Limbo. That was last month. He was right -- you, Rachel, are his final masterpiece. You are perfect, and I know that you'll live up to your name -- both of them, Phoenix. You are my last hope, everyone's last hope, though you don't know it yet. You'll rule Limbo when I'm gone, and you will be this world's salvation. You'll be something that both Nathan and Apocalypse could be proud of.   


You're everything we've fought for, Rachel, and everything I've wrote is for you to understand one day. You are the Twelve.   


Meggan Braddock  
the innocence   


Monet St. Croix  
the knowledge   


Domino  
the luck   


Samuel Guthrie  
the immortal heart   


Lockheed  
the loyalty   


Logan  
the beast and man   


Katherine Pryde  
the spirit   


Rogue  
the strength   


Benjamin Russell  
the warrior   


Amanda Wagner  
the love lost and gained   


Nathan Christopher Charles Dayspring-Summers  
the leader   


Jonothon Starsmore  
the light 


End file.
